Usain Bolt crosses the finish line to win the 4x100m relay final for Jamaica at Hampden Park. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Observer

A coruscating burst of fast-twitch fibres, a victory grin as wide as the Clyde and then a regal bow from the king of sprinting – Usain Bolt has tasted far greater glories than this, his first Commonwealth Games gold medal, but the way he celebrated Jamaica’s 4x100m relay title on a soggy night in Glasgow one would never have known.

There were smiles and selfies, jigs and jitterbugs – and an acknowledgment that after six Olympic and eight world championship golds this win was something to savour too. “It means a lot,” said Bolt. “It was the only thing missing from my collection. I missed a couple of Games because of injuries and different problems, so I am happy to be here. Even though I was cold, the reception has been warm.”

When the baton was passed to Bolt on the final leg he was level with the Englishman Danny Talbot. It took a few moments to rev up, to reach top speed. And then he was gone, crossing the line eight metres clear in a Commonwealth Games record of 37.58sec. Talbot clung on to take silver for England in 38.02, just ahead of Trinidad & Tobago who took bronze in 38.10.

Bolt said later he would continue sprinting until at least the 2017 World Championships in London. “I’ve always said that after Rio [the 2016 Olympics] I will retire, but they keep saying I should go on to 2017 so I think I might just do that. I think that will be my last championships. I’m just happy I’ve done what I wanted to do in the sport.”

But there was English gold to savour on the final night of athletics as the men’s 4x400m squad summoned the spirits of their nation’s great relay teams past to hold off Bahamas, the Olympic champions. Their star was Matthew Hudson-Smith, a 19-year-old from Wolverhampton, who took up the 400m only this year. He advertised his potential by sneaking under 45 seconds for the first time in July. Here, wearing sunglasses despite the thrashing rain, he shouted it from the rooftops.

After solid legs from Conrad Williams, Michael Bingham and Daniel Awde, Hudson-Smith received the baton four metres down on Trinidad & Tobago’s Zwede Hewitt. Normal protocol is to track and wait, before striking hard off the final bend. But Hudson-Smith had not read the rule book. He blasted the first 100m, took Hewitt down the back straight and then opened up a significant gap.

Had he gone too early? It looked that way as the 35-year-old Bahaman Chris Brown arrived on his shoulder with 30 metres remaining. But Hudson-Smith pushed again to win in 3:00.46, 0.05 sec ahead of Brown, with Trinidad & Tobago a second farther back.

“I am lost for words,” said Hudson-Smith, whose final lap was 44.7 seconds.

“That was crazy.”

Elsewhere the relay medals went to script. The Jamaican women’s 4x100m, anchored by the Olympic and world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, smashed the Commonwealth Games record to win gold in 41.83sec, with Nigeria and England farther back. And there was also bronze for England’s women’s 4x400m team, again behind Jamaica, who won gold in a Commonwealth Games record of 3:23.82, and Nigeria.

But the most inspiring performance of the night came from 40-year-old Jo Pavey, who showed remarkable tenacity and stamina to claim bronze in the women’s 5,000m.

To win a medal was impressive enough. But the way she did it was even better. Pavey took the lead with three laps to go, trying to rip the sting out of younger legs, and kept it until 600m remained, when the three Kenyans and Australian Eloise William went past her. The crowd sighed. Her challenge appeared over.

Yet Pavey kicked again and regained her lead at the bell only to slip back to fourth with 200m remaining.

But for the third time she attacked, forcing herself past Kenya’s Margaret Muriuko to finish third behind Mercy Cherino and Janet Kisa. Afterwards she hugged her four-year old son Jacob and admitted how this medal, her second at the Commonwealth Games after 5,000m silver in Melbourne, felt surreal.

“I haven’t been able to go on any training camps and I was still breast feeding at the start of April,” she said. “Being a mum is my main thing now, so to be out there getting a medal seems funny. I am changing nappies, preparing meals and I don’t get a minute to relax.

“My little girl’s at home with my mother-in-law,” she added. “She’s only 10 months and I was worried she would be terrified. I tried not to think the Kenyans were unbeatable, just gave it my all and as I hit the bell, [I thought], ‘Don’t regret this last lap.’”

The field events were delayed by 20 minutes because of the heavy rain that flooded the runways and the women’s pole vault in particular veered dangerously close to farce. At one stage there were 31 attempts and only four clearances. It was less an examination of technique, more a test of nerve.

But the reigning champion, Alana Boyd, who was fuming after failing her first two attempts at 4.15m, recovered to win in 4.50m. Wales’ Sally Peake took silver with a clearance of 4.25m while England’s Sally Scott and Canada’s Alysha Newman shared bronze with 3.80m, a height that would have been good enough for only last place in Delhi.

Elsewhere Phillips Idowu finished fifth in the men’s triple jump with 16.45 metres – his only legitimate leap – behind the South African Khotso Mokoena, who won with a season’s best of 17.20m.

Remarkably in the men’s javelin there was gold for the Kenyan Julius Yego, who learned how to throw using YouTube. “I gave up running to take up javelin because I was so slow,” he chuckled afterwards.